Changes
by Ghanaperu
Summary: Edmund thinks about how different Narnia is now. Set immediately following PC. One shot.


**Please review! I love constructive criticism, and anything else you have to say. Even one word is fine. But anyway, thanks for reading it. I hope, even if you don't like it, that you at least think it redeemable. **

**Changes**

Edmund stood, staring blankly at the arriving train. He vaguely realized that he had his school uniform back on now, but it was the sort of thing one notices without actually thinking about it. And then the noise of bustling people, of shrieking train whistles and conductors shouting burst into his awareness, startling him into action. He and his siblings rushed to get their bags and board the train. And as he stood there, pushing against the crowd of passengers for a spot to stand, he suddenly hated the silence.

"Is there any way we could get back there?" he asked, feigning solemnity. The other three looked at him, startled. He grinned.

"I've left my new torch there," he explained, happy to see his siblings smile, even if they were quite small smiles. The silence didn't seem so sad anymore, now that they had laughed together.

Later, as he sat in a seat, with the other three snoring around him, he allowed himself to think. Somehow, standing on the platform waiting for the train, waiting for Aslan to let them go back to Narnia didn't seem so bad now. Sure, he remembered how awful it was to be waiting for something that you didn't know when it would happen, but at least it was all simpler then. They had left their home, Narnia, and it was only natural that they would miss it and want to go back. And when the pull, the pull of magic, had come, his heart had jumped with joy that they were going back. Going back home, to Narnia and Aslan and Cair Paravel and Orieus and everyone else they had left, going back to the responsibilities and joys of being royalty. It was all so simple then. They had left home, and they wanted to go back.

But then they _had_ gone back. Only, it wasn't the Narnia they knew. _This_ Narnia was so far removed from _their_ Narnia, it wasn't even funny. There was no Cair Paravel. It was in ruins. There was no Tumnus or Orieus, or anyone else that they had left. They were long dead, forgotten. Everything that Narnia had once been, had once stood for, was forgotten. Hardly anyone remembered the causes that they had fought for: bled and died for. Narnia, Trees sleeping and Animals dumb, and Telmarine rulers – this was not what they had been begging Aslan to let them come back to. Their memories, what they had been longing to return to all this time, were dusty things of the past to these people. And yet, they had to grin and bear it, and fight again for a lost Narnia. They fought for the freedom they remembered, for the Trees of old and the forgotten Tumnuses of the past. But this time a crown wasn't waiting for them at the end. They were fighting for someone else's throne, for someone else's crown and right to rule, for a freedom that they would not continue.

Edmund sat on a drab British train, rocking back and forth with his siblings snoring next to him; and he allowed himself to grieve. At least back on the platform they had had hope. Hope that one day they could go back, hope that Aslan would let them go home someday. But this place that they had just come from – Narnia – it wasn't home, not the home he had had before. Now that they had gone back and seen what Narnia was like now – how different it was – the hope that they could someday get what they had had back was gone. Now the crushing knowledge that the time of ruling as King of Narnia was gone for good suffocated the small flower of hope. What was there to hope for now? Narnia – the Narnia that was home – was gone and would never be back. He could almost understand how Peter wasn't devastated by the knowledge that he had seen Narnia for the last time, because, for him, the last time had been when they had left to hunt that White Stag. For a flash of a second, Edmund even envied him. What would it be like to have to go through that rude awakening again? And then his good sense rebuked that envy. Aslan would still be there. He never changed. And Edmund closed his eyes, secure in the knowledge of Aslan's love.


End file.
